Sunday, October 31, 2010

“The most deaths in a single crocodile attack incident may have occurred during the Battle of Ramree Island, on February 19, 1945, in Burma. Nine hundred soldiers of an Imperial Japanese Army unit, in an attempt to retreat from the Royal Navy and rejoin a larger battalion of the Japanese infantry, crossed through 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) of mangrove swamps which contained Saltwater Crocodiles. Twenty Japanese soldiers were captured alive by the British, and almost five hundred are known to have escaped Ramree. Many of the remainder may have been eaten by the crocodiles, although gunfire from the British troops was undoubtedly a contributory factor.”

Friday, October 29, 2010

Killing monsters, solving a mystery of a cult trying to awaken a strange God, murder, intrigue, and monsters, and more monsters... Silent Hill has a number of volumes out and for a scary thrill ride, is pretty effective.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The worst of humans kill other humans. The worst of their number also rape and abuse their victims. Ed Gein was a person abused by his mother, and trained for the acts he was about to commit by the world view she educated him to believe. He was a cannibal, a sexual deviant, and a murderer. And more...

A family of strange cannibals ambush and kill, and eat, lost travelers and others who come near their home. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is sold as a true story. It isn't but the lead character, affectionately called Leatherface, is based upon someone real. Ed Gein. Ed Gein made human clothing and wore it. Leatherface wears the face of a victim. This work is amazingly frightening, and the source it draws from is even worse.

It is too intense for me to have watched more than once, but it is worthwhile if you wish to be afraid.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Sibling rivalry, jealous, violence, anger over unforgiven events... all conspire to bring the world of two sisters into the realm of horror. You can watch this as horror, it works as such being brutal. But, from a simple film making, this work is amazing as an example of getting two rivals and film stars to absorb and reflect their emotions, and aim them towards the other, on screen.

I am not a "fan" of this, it is too intense and mean for my tastes, but I think it is an absolutely amazing film.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

As you’ve read or seen here I have committed to delivering to you 31 Days of Horror through the month of October. I am doing a similar effort by trying to write a review a day for the month of November. This will be offering products for consideration as presents at Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanze, Solstice and/or all of the above.

I am not reviewing product from every company out there, and some of the works are older than others on the shelf or new for the season. I am to blame for that. When I was still writing over at CBG/Trouble with comics I assumed life would cooperate. During the last year I have dealt with two terrible losses, and much more work on my own creative work than ever before. I apologize here, publicly to the publishers who had faith in me to produce reviews in a timely manner, and hope by doing this monthly series, I will pay my debt back to them.

Expect reviews and product discussions from Archaia, Top Shelf, various smaller publishers, and a number of single issues from creative talents. Depending on how well it goes, perhaps I will write a small number of profiles of creators to consider as well.

Stick with me, I promise to do my best.

Here is a first review, consider it an early opportunity to seek it out as a gift, to give or receive.

Nu-Earth was a beautiful world. Until the wars came, unlimited war, war without concern for toll or civilian lives, much less the world itself. Nu-Earth was a place that could have been called perfect, but it was ruined by chemical warfare. There isn’t much left to fight over, and this earth has been divided between two groups, Norts who appear far more malicious, and Southers who seem at least, in look more like the good guys. This story is an analogue for various real earth events and the Southers and Norts are code words for the American Civil war, but, there is so much more than straight analogues and allegorical content.

Rogue Troopers are GIs (Genetic Infantrymen) and fight for the Souther Confederacy. They are soldiers who by science were created by the state to fight, and are immune to various poisons and acids, and harmful actions and issues that would harm normal humans on the battlefield. They are a higher form of human with programed intelligence and skills. The Rogue Trooper who’s eyes you see the world through, is the lone survivor of a massive slaughter of the Rogues, and he is seeking the Souther General thought to have betrayed them.

What a wonderful work this is... Rebellion UK which is putting out 2000 AD product score a massive victory with this book. It is perfectly put together, very beautiful to look at, and the stories are greatly told gems, deserving of being collected.

For its commercial value alone the work is worth the money, by far. But this is an example of something being really good, worth having, and wonderful for sharing with others.

Boris Karloff made the work FRANKENSTEIN both horror, and tragedy. His acting skills went beyond acting in all of his movies, he was a presence, a figure that required your attention. And so when you watch the Frankenstein movies from Universal, you should soak in the mastery of an actor... because the story itself is great, but what you are watching is a man turning a character into a symbol of fear, revulsion and strangely, pity.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Ghosts that haunt, beings coming out of the fog to kill! John Carpenter's work, THE FOG was imperfect, but at that same time, far beyond similar films in quality that had come out at the same time. The victims of a shipwreck at a point along the coast awaken 100 years to the day to wreak havok amongst the present and the living.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Whilst I believe this book to be great, I think people assume much about it due to the movie adaptations. As such I am suggesting people read it, because, amongst other things, I think it is better than the movies, and better than most assumptions about it. Every thing I could suggest about style or pace, or plot, we know it all from the various derivative works. But there is mastery of the language here that moves me, far beyond all the attempts to bring it to life on screen. The characters are perhaps cut from a more iconic cloth than modern works, but, I like that. I think in horror to make it horrific you have to set some boundaries and benchmarks so the reader can see where you are going.

I recommend this book especially to lovers of vampire stories. It is the source, the wellspring of all later works, even if the later authors haven't read it.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Asked why I am a friend of Joe Monks, I'd tell you that he is bright, funny, and has a personal manner about him that is forthright and straight to the point. But that isn't why I am offering up this recommendation to you. It isn't because I am impressed with his directing a film, though blind although I am impressed. It isn't because of anything personal.

It is because he writes horror very well. And his works might not be as popular as Stephen King or Anne Rice, but there is something that I cannot exactly explain about his work that is both similar to both King and Rice, but totally unique. I will try though, I think the word is verisimilitude, and I think that like King and Rice he makes horror work because it isn't all splatter and screams, it is brutal, but there is so much more there if you do more than just read. The unique aspect is found in the work with his own personal touch and additions of his personal style. When you go through his stories there is a foreboding and reality that might make you not want to read it again. But you will.

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His works have sold over 500 million units, they’ve been adapted in every creative medium, and as of 2010 he has written and published 49 novels and various works.

Little needs to be said to recommend the works of Stephen King. If he wrote in any genre save Horror I believe he’d be worshipped as a pop culture God, even more than he is right now. When his work Salem’s Lot was adapted to be shown on television, a family hour medium, I ended up scared enough to sleep with a light on in my room. Without splatter, without vulgarity, without excess violence or nudity, his story was still scary.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

“Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.” H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Before Lovecraft and since, there have been many authors of the genres he wrote in. But, of them, few reached into the cold, unfathomed logic of evil and the response of the human mind to that evil, like Lovecraft. As such, his work in this horror month is perfectly apt. No author but Lovecraft has ever scared me like his words were able.

“I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. “ H.P. Lovecraft "Dagon" - Written Jul 1917; First published in The Vagrant, No. 11 (November 1919)

Monday, October 18, 2010

I think Criminal Macabre is brilliant. Not so much the comic, which is forced as the medium is to rely upon the artist, but the novels by Steve Niles featuring Cal McDonald, who investigates and responds to horror events. Niles clearly knows his character here, writing stories that are vulgar, dark, funny and violent. The power of the story presented by Niles isn’t altogether that you like Cal McDonald, although I do, but rather, that he is faced with unspeakably horrible things, and you are with him for the spooky ride.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

I grew up with the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, written and edited by Forrest J. Ackerman. It was funny, campy, sexy to a 12 year old boy, and filled with awesome pics from the monster movies I had to be damn lucky to be able to catch on television. As tastes changed, so did the audience for the magazine, falling out of favor and going into extended hiatus more than once. But now, IDW has stepped up and made me glad. Famous Monsters of Filmland returns, if only a wee bit different than the original. I recommend it.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft's works are brilliant. Filled with horror, madness, gore, and unimaginably terrible things. I recommend all his works to you. But what made my introduction to them special, were the covers of 6 Lovecraft books, done by Michael Whelan.

If you've ever seen a better collection of images that accompany madness, fear and more, I don't know what they'd be.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I linked earlier to the work of Thom Olausson a Swedish poet who revels in the darkness. I know another poet just as dark but with less mysticism and less mythic content within his work. The work of Robert Wilson is as dark and hopeless as poetry can possibly be with making the reader go out and slit a wrist or slap an elderly person. The writer himself is not evil, he is bright and with a big heart, but, he writes about the world he sees before him.

I had the opportunity to play Call of Cthulhu The Card Game and I was impressed. I had played the original by Chaosium and was not impressed, but still enjoyed aspects of it. But in this game, wholly new and different from the first, the game is wonderfully made, with reasons to appreciate it for the seasoned reader of H.P. Lovecraft, to those who've never turned a page. Fantasy Flight Games made sure that I'd be coming back to play this...

$39.95

Ancient, nameless horrors dwell in the darkness, writhing in the night sky and under the earth, just beyond our senses. In Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, players take the roles of investigators, villains, and unspeakable horrors inspired by the dark mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Agency detectives , Miskatonic University students and faculty, and the members of the mysterious Syndicate all join the fight against otherworldly beings including Cthluhu, Hastur, Yog-Sothoth, and Shub Niggurath.

Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is 2-player, customizable card duel game in which players command both human and monster factions. As a Living Card Game, hundreds of additional Cards are available for all seven factions, allowing players to customize the contents of this set, or create their own original decks. Lovecraft's horrors live, in Call of Cthulhu: The Card game!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I am unaware of people who prefer the silent film Nosferatu to Dracula (with Bela Lugosi) but I mostly find myself in that lone number. The silent film aspect of this makes some of the scenes move more creepily, the story seems darker, the movements and frames are so odd and other worldly that the sounds I add to the film are pretty much those of fear.

The term Nosferatu seems to derive from the Greek Nosophoros which means disease bringer. And, that, to me also seems more apt. As you will note when you read future entries here, I am not sold into one version of a character or story, it doesn't matter to me, which one is my favorite, all that matters is the one that made me scared or whatever the reaction I was supposed to have.

And what luggage did it return with from its long vacation? Inner- and inter-personal dynamism, theological development, and martial arts fisticuffs – all fine presents met with a thankful “about time.”

And we still have nine more episodes to go.

* * * * *

“Unvanquished” marks the first time we get to see Sister Clarice Willow emerge from the shadows of secondary character status to take the spotlight as a leading and, indeed, formidable persona. And while her character is certainly the more interesting and dynamic for it, she still has a long way to go before attaining the nuance and shading that Daniel Graystone has had since day one and Lacy Rand is quickly attaining scene by scene, week by week.

Willow’s transformation is accomplished in no small part by the change of scenery, both literal and figurative. The monotheistic church is an infinitely more sophisticated structure than one would have originally thought, continuing to play up Battlestar Galactica’s penchant for drawing upon and reflecting back modern-day society through the prism that is Colonial life: the Church, with its conspiring leaders and religiously ordained Holy Crusades and the wavering grey line between its liturgical and militant members, bares more than a passing resemble to several European variations of Christianity throughout the past nine hundred years. (Perhaps the most striking – and compelling – element of the monotheists’ ecclesiastical composition is the inclusion of, ostensibly, a female pope, hitting chords of resonance with BSG’s gender equality and those of dissonance with the audience’s connotations of “Holy Mothers,” such as the venerable Mother Teresa.) And seeing Gemenon, even if just the slice that is the Caprican version of the Vatican, is an arresting and refreshing change of pace, playing up the theatrical melodrama that is too often evident in the inner circles of religious capitals and providing a vivid contrast to the all-too-familiar urban landscapes of Caprica.

Ultimately, however, the aspect of Willow’s character arc in this episode that packs the most potentiality is in its foreshadowing: an ascendant Sister Clarice, employing her sexuality and deploying back-room negotiations equally to serve her needs, is a thing to behold. The tipping of the balance of power on Gemenon is one (absorbing and dramatic) thing; its arrangement and alignment on Caprica is another, and this is where, one imagines, the bulk of Willow’s throughline will play out for the remainder of the season. While the particular theological interpretation of her general religious worldview may become dominant on Gemenon by virtue of the threat of force and its allure to outsiders, both within and without the Church, its assimilation amongst the various terrorist cells on Caprica – not to mention, quite possibly, mainstream Caprican society, in general – will only be had by the application of violence and terror in equal measures, something which Barnabus, proving to be something more of a Darth Maul than Clarice’s Darth Sidious, has excelled at. That there is to be a knock-down, drag-out slugfest is not to be in doubt; how long the character of Barnabus will stick around, whether in flesh-and-blood or Living Avatar status, is.

“Lord save me from the Capricans, indeed.”

* * * * *

The duet continues.

Caprica is, at its heart, a continual and continually adjusted pivot between the two axes of Daniel Graystone, on the one hand, and Joseph Adama, on the other. Continuing to find new and fresh ways to make one fall into the orbit of the other has already proven to occupy a major part of the series’s narrative focus, and it will continue to do so at an exponential rate the further the characters find themselves hurtling down fate’s path.

And falling into orbit is something these two characters certainly have done – but, surprisingly enough, it is Graystone who comes under the gravitational sway of Adama, instead of the other way around. This constitutes much more than a longer, louder echo of the pilot’s events, in which a grief-stricken Daniel comes looking for an industrial espionage favor from the Ha’la’tha that Joseph represents (in more ways than one); it is a reversal of major proportions, not the least of which because it signals – or, rather, [i]may[/i] signal – a fundamental shift in the character of Joseph. Long gone is the broken, addiction-riddled individual who never changed out of his boxers and bathrobe or, indeed, got up off of his couch, replaced by a man fully back in the groove of “professional” life. The reversal is made all the more striking due to its progressive rather than regressive nature: in the pilot, Joseph is attempting to break out of the Ha’la’tha’s sway, shrugging off the guatrau’s favors and angling towards something of a more normal, naturalized life; in “Unvanquished,” he is getting a “bump up,” climbing the gangster totem pole in terms of influence as well as privilege.

That his ascent is at the expense of Daniel’s descent is only to be expected. These two characters’ relationship, after all, is a thematic as well as a symbolic representation and condensation of Colonial-Cylon relations… only, if the past ten episodes (not to mention the previous 73 installments of Battlestar) are anything to go by, without the redemptive or restorative denouement of the latter.

* * * * *

Amongst all these complications and implications, there is one final element that has, finally, bubbled up to the surface: the show’s main theme. It originally appeared to be loss or any number of its variations – grief, nihilism, obsession – but it is something much more fundamental and, indeed, primal, something which loss or obsession is merely indicative of. Extremism is the name of the game on Caprica, and it dictates the pitch and course of each character’s actions, making Graystone come crawling back to the Ha’la’tha or Sister Willow seduce one man in order to assassinate another. And it is also the quality, of course, that will pit man versus machine and holocaust for holocaust until all that is left is a primitive, inchoate society on a far-flung planet that makes all and sundry jump to the extreme conclusion that they need to cast aside all of their technology and all their societal advancements in order to start anew.

Monday, October 11, 2010

If you dig howling at the moon, hunting lesser beings, and being a member of a bestial tribe, this game is for you. Filled with ways to become the leader of the wolf pack, White Wolf games creates stories and role playing game mechanics that allow for the most original stories, ones that the players and game master cooperatively tell.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

The reason the comic book THE WALKING DEAD scores here as horror is that the world is infected/infested with zombies. However, Robert Kirkman's work is far greater than the greatest result that such a scenario can offer. His characters are real, suffering from a disaster of epic scale, and the catastrophe he writes about can be seen because rather than writing about heroes, he writes about real people facing horror.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

There is no other writer of vampires who I think does them as much justice as Anne Rice. She makes them brutal, hungry, broken inside, jealous, capricious, close to indestructible, vain, angry, and possessed of knowledge that matches the great length of their unlife.

Her writing, especially regarding her depictions of New Orleans, and Paris, are lush, and worthy of any of the most Gothic work. The landscape is lush, and you can hear and see what goes on in every scene... I love her writing.

I realize that some don't care for her writing style, and some people don't care for vampires. But, I do. And thereby I am offering up this recommendation for those who like their darkness with style, and blood.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Truly, if there was a movie that started a trend in how any creature of the night was portrayed, it was with the depiction of zombies of Night of the Living Dead by George Romero. Rather than any other portrayal these were relentless, if slow, mindless, if hungry beings who desired to eat only one thing, your brains. But, Romero made his story to have context, and some social commentary as well. As such, while clearly not a well funded project, it was a distinct, powerful movie. Go watch it, and have a person with you who is really smart so that if you hunger for brains, you won't starve.

Oh, and, however fine version you can find out there, it is a public domain work, so you can probably find and watch it for very little money. Very very little.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

DC Comics has chosen to only collect one chapter of this tale, and it is a shame. Because, however you view the afterlife, there are consequences to the existence of the God humans have called Jehovah and Allah if it actually does exist. For instance the concept of vengeance versus revenge, and various forms of the Angel of Death if the religious texts of the Abrahamic religions are accurate, are vital parts of the theological beliefs of forgiveness, sin, redemption and righteous anger. Ascribing religious and theologically sound motives and background, makes this Spectre real. In this run of issues, illustrated quite magnificently by Tom Mandrake, writer John Ostrander asks enormous questions, that have to be understood, if a being of the nature of The Spectre is to be considered relevant or interesting.

And oh my, it is interesting, but more so, it is horror, for if the religions of the Abrahamic world are correct, there will be eternal justice and wrath poured out. Even if they do not exist, making this character founded upon such doctrines makes it incredibly powerful.

If Bob Harras as DC EIC has any ability to make this series available in reprint, he should do so the first thing he is able. It is that good.

Find out more about the Spectre @Find out more about the creators of this series at @ and @

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Take the darkness of the worst horrors, and put them to rhyme, and read them with a voice from the abyss. It isn’t easy to imagine, then even harder to write, let alone perform. But poet Thom Olausson not only does this, he does it well, and keeps coming back with more and more dark delicious bad stuff. Thom is a friend and a co-collaborator with me upon a project, but my work is considerably different than this. His work is filled with echoes of a darker time, when men, gods and monsters walked this earth.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The book FRANKENSTEIN written in the 1800s by Mary Shelley, is said by some sources to have arisen from a shared challenge by poets Lord Byron and Shelley's husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. The challenge was to write a story that questioned man becoming as a God, the role of humans as the new Prometheus (of Greek myth and legend), and humanity’s growing knowledge of science making God more or less a belief rather than assumed fact. That Prometheus the titan is argued in Greek mythology to have given humanity fire, thus, giving them the power of intellect. The titan is thereafter punished by Zeus, the father God for such an act. Doctor Victor Frankenstein, in his role as the builder of the monster/being of Frankenstein, is the creator of unlife, is the Prometheus, having stolen the fire and sharing it with other mortals.

This book is not a horror novel so much as an incredible journey into the world of the 1800s intellectual community. Who is God, if man can recreate life? What is life if it can be made by man? Are we the Prometheus? Or will we be?

Having said this isn’t horror why am I presenting it for your consideration in Horror month? It is read with abject horror by people who desire only easy answers. It was adapted to film, and other media in ways that focus upon the result of the act of creating, the monster, rather than considering the reality, that Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus is about the world of science, and the consequences of creation without ethics or moral endowment.

Read this because it is good, regardless of the genre. It is deservedly called a CLASSIC.